All posts tagged: cateract

Tofu Tuesday: Blindness diary. Week 4

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Week 4 Even with his blindness, Tofu still spends 12 hours a day outside in the garden. He is eager to go outside in the mornings and runs to the back door to be let out. He sometimes comes inside on his own in the evenings, and equally, sometimes needs to be fetched. Tofu is jumping up onto our bed and couch and continues to move around the house like he owns the place. He still doesn’t sleep on our bed like he used to, but that’s no biggie. He prefers to sleep on the floor next to our bed. One time he went to jump onto the couch, but underestimated the height and fully bailed. I swear he looked embarrassed. Failing to reach the couch could happen due to his blindness or could just be something that happens. We once had a bunny named Sharmi and a couple of times, she bailed when jumping up onto things. One time Sharmi was walking along the top of the couch and fell off the back. She was …

Tofu Tuesday: Blindness diary. Week 3

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Week 3 Tofu is starting to jump up onto the couch and up to our bed on his own. Either he is getting very confident with his blindness or he has learned how to use what little sight he has. He runs to the back door most mornings now, eager to be let outside. Our feijoa tree is in full fruit so it’s possible he’s been dreaming of feijoas all night and is eager to see if any more fruit has dropped. It’s really hard for me to find feijoas in our backyard as our grass is long and the feijoa are green. But Tofu manages to find them fine as they smell wonderfully perfumy and sweet. Tofu has come back inside on his own a few times in the evenings, but usually he needs to be fetched. When we bring him inside, it takes him a little while to figure out where in the house he has been put down. But once that has been figured out, he’s pretty much good to go. Check out …

Tofu Tuesday: Blindness diary. Week 2

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Week 2 Before blindness, when Tofu was offered a grape or a piece of carrot, he took it firmly between his bunny teeth and ran away with it to somewhere he deemed “safe”. His instinct tells him the treat is too much of a good thing and he doesn’t trust us enough to eat his treat near us. Now that he cannot see, this impulse is a bit messed up. He recognises the treat, lunges for it, misses, takes off, realises he hasn’t got the treat, frantically returns for the treat, while still ready to flee. If he could just calm down and look for the carrot methodically, he’d find it. It’s a concerning how hysterical he gets over a piece of carrot. When there is just the three of us home, it is familiar. The sounds of the the house are regular and objects are where they should be, Tofu gets around fine. When there are lots of people in the house, random feet and bags in unusual places, Tofu gets disorientated. He can’t …

Tofu Tuesday: Blindness diary. Week 1

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Week 1 First week of blindness in both eyes, we all had to adapt. I admit, the first few times I saw him run into things, it was a funny sight but now it breaks my heart. However, blindness doesn’t stop Tofu from running at full speed. What a brave wee soul. A common collision is when he’s running at full speed down our hallway and we have a clothes horse set up. Even with perfect vision, a bunny would have trouble seeing the skinny legs of a clothes horse and the problem is that the clothes horse is not always up. It’s not in his memory so he forgets to put it in his mind’s eye. If we can find a new place to put the clothes horse, we could eliminate this problem. Tofu’s “raisins” can be found littered around outside his hutch. We keep his litter tray inside his hutch and most time he goes to the toilet in there. It’s hard to say if it’s blindness or if he is marking out …

Tofu Tuesday: Nothing to see here

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A couple of weeks ago, we noticed a white spot over one of Tofu’s eyes. It looked like a cataract and dilated at different times of the day. When we visited the vet, she said the damage could be permanent and supplied some eye drops. Dilating means that he is getting some light in there and the pupil is reacting. That’s promising. Tofu doesn’t seem bothered by the lack of sight in one eye. He’s his usual happy self and if anything, it makes it easier to wrangle him up at night. I don’t think he misses his full sight, he’s just adapted to function without. Being blind in one side is bad for a wild rabbit, but for rabbit that runs the entire backyard as his own domain, it’s not a problem. So no image this week. In honour of Tofu’s blind side. Check out previous Tofu Tuesday posts here.